CANTO VIII (continued)

The procession of the Chieftains
measures the cold of flagstones,
sliced from Liscannor
before the Protestants came.

Through the fog of incense
rose the chant of sinners.
Down from the Mount of Fianna Fail
strode the five hundred

candidates for the honour of redemption
in the Oireachtas.  Bertie Ahern,
christened in St Eamon’s parish
Patrick Bartholomew Drumcondra

Dig-out O’hEachthain,
Son of Con, begot of Julia Hourihane,
Ballyfeard genes from the Battle of Kinsale,
he holds the key of a Vincentian

Ghost who left the priesthood
before he could transubstantiate,
locked fingertips with a particular Reynolds
in front of the lesser nobles.

Dev would have been here,
Lemass wouldn’t have missed it,
Lynch never lost an opportunity
for a smoke.

Sean T O’Kelly, Childers, Hillery 
McAleese, all there in spirit.
The Judas Haughey, sackclothed,
teeth scrubbed with ashes,

he is gone to his island,
repentant, resplendent in sin,
bare-soled on granite shards
around the holy-of-holies 

on Lough Derg,
his other islands abandoned -
the one absolutely dishonest man
is doing his Purgatory on earth

among the memories of tribespeople
who voted for his style,
so he’ll not walk this church
until purged.

It’s said he’ll suffer silence
until NAMA has come and gone
and the pestilences are passed,
lanced, festered, and turned to leprosy. 

C J Hee Haw, Lord HawHaw,
Ard Ri that was,
is still confessing
as the Charlie is benedicted,

the monstrance set aside,
a ciborium uber alles,
and the Gospel is read,
without credibility,

because there is no good news
in all these fields
since Flight of the Earls of Power:
Carroll, Cleary, Doyle and Hegarty

O’Callaghan, O’Flynn, Murtagh
and their Generals,
all vanquished gone,
returned to spend more time

with their family,
leaving their faithful
wrapt roofless
in negative equity.

(end of Canto 8)